For person-to-person sales, there are many added benefits possible for customers. For example, a discount can be offered to customers in accordance with their quantity of purchases of products or service in a fixed period of time, or a discount may be offered to customers on their birthdays. A store may give coupons or points to every customer on every purchase, and offer a discount or a premium to them for their coupons or points when their coupons or points add up to a prescribed amount. A restaurant may offer a discount or a free dessert to customers who visit on their birthdays.
In the case of vending machines, which sell products without human attendance, however, added benefits on sales are offered to all purchasers evenly or on an even probability. For example, a soft-drink vending machine with a lottery function offers one more bottle to any purchaser who happens to draw a winning number. On the other hand, payment settling methods with IC cards (also known as smart cards) have recently been proposed and experimented with. One form of such is IC card-type credit cards, while another form is electronic money, or e-money. For instance, one such method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-188093.
Electronic money is stored in the memory of an IC card. When transaction are made, instead of cash money, e-money is interchanged between IC cards. Such an interchange of e-money between IC cards is made by IC card writing/reading apparatus which reads and writes information from and into IC cards.
Because conventional vending machines with added benefit functions serve purchasers in similar ways, it is difficult for any of such vending machine to gain an advantage over the others. If a vending machine, however, is capable of offering particular benefits in accordance with a characteristic of each purchaser, as in the case of sales with human attendance, it can gain an advantage over the others and attract more purchasers. If vending machines with such capability are introduced into the market, they bring more competition into the market.
For a vending machine to offer added benefit to individual purchasers for their accumulated points, the vending machine has to issue a card to each purchaser to manage his or her point data, or write a special application program into, and secure an exclusive storage area in, the memory of each customer""s IC card. The cost of issuing such purchaser""s IC cards, however, would be burdensome for such a vending machine selling low-priced products to the general public, or it would be burdensome for such an IC card to take in and keep a number of vending machine-specific programs and provide and maintain a number of vending machine-specific storage areas.
Assume that each time one uses a different vending machine, a storage area in his or her IC card is allocated to the vending machine to offer an added benefit for accumulated points. A typical IC card presently in use has a memory of about 8 KB. Its IC card-management of OS and an e-money application program, if installed, typically would occupy more than 7 KB, leaving less than 1 KB free. Such an IC card cannot afford to store the ID data of all vending machines which the owner of the IC card happens to encounter, nor the data of points collected from all such vending machines. In addition, it would not be easy to delete data stored in an IC card because data are stored in particular formats and, hence, stored data have to be deleted in accordance with particular protocols. Accordingly, once an IC card is filled with data from a number of vending machines, it would be difficult for the owner of the IC card to control its memory appropriately.
In accordance with the above, the present invention improves the attraction of each vending machine for purchasers by relieving such burden on such IC cards and offering added benefit to individual purchasers in accordance with their individual characteristics.
To solve the above problems, the present invention provides an automatic vending device for products or services. The automatic vending device uses an IC card, and each IC card stores xe2x80x9csum-of-moneyxe2x80x9d information enabling the settlement of purchases and ID information enabling the identification of the IC card, or the owner or user of the IC card. The automatic vending device includes a means for collecting money for products or service sold, a means for storing the extent of purchases made with each IC card, linking the extent of purchases to the ID information stored in the IC card, and a means for controlling the automatic vending, device so that when the degree of purchase made with each 1C card meets a prescribed condition, an added benefit is offered to the purchaser using the IC card.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an IC card processing device is connected to an automatic vending device of products or services. The automatic vending device uses IC cards, and each IC card stores xe2x80x9csum-of-moneyxe2x80x9d information enabling the settlement of purchase amount of money and ID information enabling the identification of the IC card, or the owner or user of the IC card. The IC card processing device includes a connector for connecting the IC card processing device to the automatic vending device, a means for collecting money for products or service sold, a means for storing the degree of purchase made with each IC card, linking the degree of purchase to the ID information stored in the IC card, and a means for controlling the automatic vending device so that when the degree of purchase made with each IC card meets prescribed conditions, some added benefit maybe offered to the purchaser using the IC card.
In another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a selling method wherein an automatic vending device of products or service is used. IC cards can be fitted in the automatic vending device, and each IC card stores sum-of-money information enabling the settlement of purchase amounts and ID information enabling the identification of the IC card, or the owner or user of the IC card. The selling method comprises a step of collecting money for products or service sold, a step of storing the degree of purchases made with each IC card, linking the degree of purchases to the ID information stored in the IC card, and a step of controlling the automatic vending device so that when the degree of purchases made with each IC card meets prescribed conditions, an added benefit is offered to the purchaser using the IC card.
One feature of the present invention is that the sum-of-money information is information on e-money with which settlement can be effected electronically. Another feature of the present invention is that the sum-of-money information is credit information with which electronic charging processing can be made. An additional feature of the present invention is that the degree of purchase made with each IC card is expressed in a numerical magnitude corresponding to the number of times collection of money under the IC card, or the quantity or the kinds of products or services which the money has been collected for under the IC card, or the sum of money collected from the IC card.
Further features of the invention are that time-period information fixing a period is stored and the degree of purchase made with each IC card is based on the purchase made with the IC card during the period governed by the time-period information; that the added benefit is a discount off prices to be collected electronically by the means for collecting money for products or service sold; that the added benefit is to offer products or services free of charge; that a discount rate is set and stored for each kind of product or service and the discount is by the discount rate; that the ID information is the personal information of the owner of each IC card, and when the personal information meets prescribed conditions, added benefit is offered; and that the personal information includes the birthday of the owner of each IC card.